Lots of Comic Pros Are Having Trouble Getting Pro Badges for New York Comic Con

It’s that time of year again. Time for New York Comic Con to begin sending out their acceptance and rejection letters to comic book professionals. And this year, it seems, being a comic book professional, even a famous and/or critically acclaimed one, won’t guarantee you a pro badge. Especially if you’re a letterer, like Eisner and Harvey nominated Deron Bennett, who posted on Twitter:

Many of the rejected applicants have been approved in the past. Even those once featured as guests. Perhaps, most notably, Jamal Igle:

I got turned down for a pro badge at @NY_Comic_Con. That’s the first time since the show started. I didn’t meet their criteria in spite of having multiple published projects come out in the past year and being a special guest at the show multiple times. Huh. pic.twitter.com/rRVAPsnG6L

The NYCC website is vague about the selection criteria on their website:

NYCC welcomes professionals across the full spectrum of pop culture industries and is happy to provide an Industry badge to approved artists, buyers, creators, editors, educators, librarians, licensors, producers, publishers, tastemakers, retailers and writers currently working or retired from comics and popular arts. Due to the volume of applications, we cannot provide Industry badges to support staff, such as administrative staff, facilities, IT, operations and others who are not directly involved in the creative process.

Also, just because you were granted a professional badge in the past does not guarantee you will be approved this year.

So what’s going on?

Seriously, the number of people I've never heard of who are saying they got pro passes to @NY_Comic_Con#nycc and the number of pros who got denied is ridiculous. @NY_Comic_Con, you really fucked up. It's comic con, not whatever the fuck con.

A prophecy says that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero will come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events.

Scourge of Rich Johnston, maker of puns, and seeker of the Snyder Cut, Jude Terror, sadly, is not the hero comics needs right now... but he's the one the industry deserves.